Companies typically have difficulties tracking inventory items and their usage within their facilities. Many inventory items are misused, misplaced, and improperly tracked and replenished by the employees of the companies. Therefore, companies have incentives to track the items, hold employees responsible for missing items, properly account costs, and replenish the missing items based on demand. Typically items of the inventory are kept in a controlled space that is monitored. Some companies have used locking doors with keypads that allow only employees with authorized code to enter the controlled space. In addition, computers and bar code tags have been used to track the items in and out of the controlled space. However, these systems still lack tracking information, cost accounting information, security methods, and replenishment information in the process of tracking and monitoring the items stored in the controlled space and linking the responsible employee with the items being taken in and out of the controlled space.
Many industrial plants utilize one centralized location or facility to house their inventory of consumables, expendable items, indirect material, and maintenance, repair and operating (“MRO”). Typically, the average plant will include multiple facilities with multiple floors. This poses a multitude of challenges and inefficiencies. Significant loss in personnel productivity may be realized as a result of the following: extended line queue/bottlenecks at the central warehouse, extended trip time “to” and “from” the central warehouse, liability/risk associated when not providing safety items (personal protection equipment “PPE”) in close proximity to work areas.
Many industrial plants operate with shifts around the clock and are open seven days a week, but do not have the resources to supervise their store/stock rooms on every shift. For example, second and third shift distribution and tracking of usage may be greatly reduced. Some plants shift the responsibilities to floor supervisors, which many times leads to open stock environments. Open stock environments, where inventory exists in an open or unsecured environment, lack accountability and traceability. Any semblance of inventory control and accountability is marginalized as a result of the lack of control during these non-peak hours. As such, over consuming, waste, and loss are common occurrences. Additionally, there is no process to track inventory levels or identify times for replenishment. Thus, purchasing the right items at the right time becomes a daunting task.
Lack of warehouse space is another common issue or challenge encountered by industrial plants. Some industrial plants compensate for limited storage or inventory space within their centralized store room and throughout the plant by constructing a satellite or secondary facility. However, many times this is not a viable option, even though the supplemental inventory is required throughout various areas of the plant.
In-plant suppliers and other vendors face additional challenges, which may include costs associated with remotely managing inventory located at plant and/or customer sites. These challenges include an inability to remotely monitor inventory levels of product at a customer site as well as a lack of automation tools to predict customer order replenishment. Contemporary processes for these vendors are generally entirely reactive. Documentation is typically manual and consists of redundant data entry. Additional inefficiencies and costs are associated with routinely sending representatives on-site to conduct physical counts of inventory. These onsite visits contribute to increased fuel costs, additional manpower requirements to conduct services, and loss of productivity (process is very time consuming). The inability to electronically track activity of consignment inventory may also produce increased administrative cost (invoicing, etc.) plus shipping, receiving, and carrying cost. Vendors may also experience limited security of consignment inventory as well as limited protection of inventory from potentially severe environmental conditions. Shelve or storage space at customer's site may also be limited.
The problem escalates when outside of a controlled environment such as a facility. Jobsite and yard equipment theft is significant with industry loss estimates up to one billion dollars annually, according to a 2003 National Equipment Register study. Tool tracking and management systems provide one level of security, but a large percentage of theft includes tools disappearing from jobsites or yards at the end of the workday. Some contemporary solutions to this problem include security portals designed for gate entrances and exits and activated by special electronic article surveillance (“EAS”) security tags. Similar to retail environments, in practice, the portal sounds an alarm when an EAS tagged tool passes through it, alerting jobsite security and management to a problem. Portals are designed to attach to any fence or gate system for a secure entry and exit point. However, these solutions still lack the tracking and access control that is beneficial on a jobsite or in a yard with combinations of employees and contractors, as well as ease and portability of the secured area.
Additionally, many of the same challenges encountered by the plant internally are comparable to that of contractor, vendor, and rental suppliers. Limited resources, manual control procedures and documentation, limited space and locations all contribute to inventory shrinkage, lost productivity, potential safety issues and project delays. Many consumable and tool suppliers do not have the proper on-site storage facilities available to manage their inventory. Instead, they provide minimal security to their temporary supply depots, which leads to inaccuracies in accounting for job costing.
Therefore there is a need in the art for a system, apparatus and method that monitors and tracks items stored in a controlled space, which is conveniently portable throughout an industrial plant or outdoor location.